Articles

Charlie Kaufman Au Naturel

Reel.com
April 2002
by Rod Armstrong

Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman infected the heads of many moviegoers with his script for Being John Malkovich. Audiences starved for wit and ingenuity were nourished by the film's surrealism and out-there sensibilities. Television watchers may have noticed his name on series like Get a Life and The Dana Carvey Show, but his real skills were clearly saved for the big screen.

For those wondering what in the world Kaufman would come up with next, the wait is over. Human Nature is here and it's another delve into the fantastic and unexpected. Patricia Arquette stars as Lila Jute, a hirsute nature-book author involved with a behavioral scientist (Tim Robbins) and his subject, a man named Puff (Rhys Ifans) who thinks he's a monkey. Though Lila first aligns herself with the doctor and his techniques, she later sympathizes with Puff and regrets her participation in tampering with his nature.

Fans of Being John Malkovich will find much to enjoy in Kaufman's new film. Plus, two more of his scripts — Adaptation and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind — are awaiting release later in the year. With so much on his plate, it was gratifying that the screenwriter found the time for this exclusive interview with Reel where he talks about his writing approach, his upcoming work, and his interest in directing.

Q: I want to talk in a broad sense about your approach to screenwriting, because it seems to me very fabulist-oriented. What I think you're doing that interests and excites a lot of people is that you're taking advantage of movies as a medium to do anything, in the same way animation does. I wonder how that process started happening for you, and how you exploded how movies could be written?

Charlie Kaufman: Oh, wow. I don't know if I do that.

Q: Oh, you don't?

CK: No. I don't know. I try to be free to do what I want and what I find interesting. I guess maybe that explodes things, I don't know. That's kind of it. I don't really have any master plan or anything.

Q: I would assume that you knew when you were writing something like Being John Malkovich or Human Nature that you were breaking down certain walls.

CK: I try to do stuff that feels different to me, that feels new. You could fall on your face because it's more interesting to do that, you know? It's more interesting to take a risk than try to do some kind of formulaic thing. Maybe that's how it comes to breaking down walls. I'm not necessarily trying to do something larger than what I'm doing.

Q: Do you come to a script with a concept in mind of things you want to explore, then explore them in novel ways?

CK: Yeah, I'd say I'd do that. I have an idea of what I want to explore, or I have some feeling I want to explore. I figure out a story that fits or allows me to explore it. Different movies come about in different ways. It's not always the same process. I'd say the feeling thing is important to me. That's something I can't even articulate; just sort of I wanted to have this tone or this feeling and I just leave it open. I start to work and don't have any idea of where it's going, necessarily. It's better for me to work that way.

Q: What were the things you were trying to explore in Human Nature, if you can articulate them?

CK: I'm not sure, it's so hard, because then people start saying things. Someone just read me something from Film Comment, which I haven't seen, but they told me there's a review of Human Nature in it. They talk about what I do, and it has something to do with the alienation from the body.

Q: They got very intellectual on you?

CK: It seems like it. He only read that one line to me and now I'm thinking, "That's what I do." I like to keep it on an unconscious level. I figure the stuff that's funny to me, or painful, or interesting to me is something that's worth exploring. I tend to gravitate toward those elements, and stuff starts to form and kind of evolves and I get a clear idea of what a story is and I try to base the characters on stuff I understand from my own experience in the world. In Human Nature, I guess there's a lot of conspicuous issues about isolation and manipulation in that movie.

Q: Was it written after or before Being John Malkovich?

CK: It was written a year later. I was working in TV. Both years, my show got cancelled and I was waiting for hiring season, so I wrote Being John Malkovich the first year, and Human Nature the second year. It was around '95 and '96.

Q: The two newer ones, Adapation and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind — were they written subsequent to those two?

CK: Yeah, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind was my first assignment. Human Nature and Being John Malkovich were spec scripts. I got hired to write Confessions, then I wrote another script that was based on a Philip K. Dick book, Scanner Darkly, which I don't think is getting made. At least if it is getting made, it's not with my script. I heard that someone's doing it now. Then I wrote Adaptation. Then I wrote a script which I'm going to be doing in December, directed by Michel [Gondry].

Q: That's the same guy that did Human Nature, correct? What prompted that partnership?

CK: I don't know if it's a partnership any more than my relationship with Spike Jonze is a partnership. I think what happened with Michel is that we sold this pitch, the script of the movie he's doing in November, at the same time as I had the assignment to write Adaptation. Michel wanted to make a movie, and read Human Nature while waiting for me to finish this other thing. So, subsequently, we became partners in two movies. It's not like we're —

Q: Soul mates?

CK: Well, we are soul mates, but not like that. [Laughs]

Q: So, what are people looking forward to with not only Human Nature, but also Adaptation and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind? I wonder if you play favorites, if there are specific things you look forward to people seeing in these upcoming features? If you'd talk a little about all the movies coming out and what people can look forward to, and maybe your favorite parts, what you think works, and maybe what you think doesn't?

CK: That's a big, broad question you're asking there. You know, I'm not really involved in the production of Confessions; I don't know what the movie's going to look like. I haven't been on the set. They're shooting it now, but I haven't seen any of it. I can't say. I've been really involved with Adaptation, and continue to be. We're in post-production now, and it's close to being done. I'm not sure how it's going to look when it's all together. It's a complicated movie, and it's been complicated to edit. It's taken us a while to figure it out. But I think it's sort of interesting. I don't want to play favorites, because I don't really have favorites. I write these things, and I'm usually involved; in some cases I'm not, and the movie comes out and people think what they think. I'm already moving on to something else.

Q: How much do you remove yourself once it's written? Authors of novels are allowed to really feel like, for better or for worse, this is their product. For a screenwriter, I don't know how wide the gap is, and it probably varies from movie to movie, but how do you go through that process of, perhaps, removing yourself? Is that difficult?

CK: I don't want to remove myself, generally, until the thing is done. Then I want to remove myself because I have nothing to do with how people respond. It's out of my hands. I like being involved intimately with pre-production and production and post-production. And with most of the things I've worked on, I've had the chance to do that. They're important to me and I don't want to give them over to someone else. But it is a collaborative thing, and that's the difference between what I do and what a novelist does. There is a director that's going to direct it and actors that are going to embody the characters, and on and on. That can be exciting. But I don't want to be closed out of it. I want to be as involved in the various processes as any other creative person on the film. Does that answer the question?

Q: It does, I think. It was kind of a broad question, and I apologize for that.

CK: I got in the middle of talking, and I realized I didn't remember what I was talking about anymore. [Laughs] That happens to me often.

Q: Right. Were you to become — and I don't know if you have any interest in this — were you to become writer and director, that would give you more control. Would that be appealing?

CK: Yeah, that is appealing, and at some point it's something I intend to do in the next year or so. I'm really only interested in directing stuff that I've written. Although I've been happy with the working relationships I've had with directors, I want to see how it would look when I do it. So I will.

Q: Are there any people, either screenwriters or writer/directors, whose work you follow, that doesn't necessarily have to be an influence, but that interests you and informs you in some way?

CK: I like the Coens, and I like David Lynch. There's movie that I really like by Tom Noonan, called What Happened Was....

Q: That's a great film.

CK: I like that movie a lot. I haven't watched it recently, but I watch it a lot. It's extremely impressive. I like Mike Leigh a lot. Naked is a film I've watched a lot. I don't know.

Q: What about the actors in Human Nature? I don't know if you were on the set a lot, but from what's on-screen, it seems like they were complete troopers and really went for it. Like Patricia Arquette running through the forest and singing. I wonder how — for the two scripts you've written — important it is for actors to go the distance? I wonder if that's something that has to be approached in the pre-production effort, and if there are any fun stories from the actual filming of Human Nature that have to do with the actors going to certain extremes?

CK: I don't have a lot of fun stories. I will say that Patricia Arquette was just game, and she did everything without qualms and everything that needed to be done. I think she's real courageous. Also, Rhys, who was naked for a good part of the time as well.

Q: So many actors and actresses are willing to be naked, but so seldom for comedic purposes. That's really a challenge to bring off, and to do it in that way.

CK: When I first wrote Human Nature, before the movie was going to be made, I was told, "You're never going to find an actress who's going to do this." Patricia, she just jumped right in. She liked the part, she liked the script, and she liked Michel. She committed to it. Not only is she naked, she's covered with hair in what might be considered an unflattering way. She's really great. There were no problems on the set that I know of with the actors. It's the kind of movie where people are only there because they want to be there. There's no money to be made here; no one was being paid what they normally get paid, so they were there because they wanted to be. That probably changes the tone of the set.

(Source)